


Sunshine

by bendingwind



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 07:44:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendingwind/pseuds/bendingwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They took her apart and built her back up and tore her town again, and then she built herself anew.</p><p>Natasha remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leiascully](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/gifts).



> Many thanks to [sabinelagrande](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande) and [tsukinobun](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukinobun) for amazing speedy betaing! Any mistakes that remain are obvs my own, especially in relation to Russian naming conventions (which I love a lot but have only shady-internet-research-and-half-remembered-classics-from-high-school information on).

I.

Natasha remembers this:

A room lit in red. Hot hands pressed against her cheeks, digging into her skin so that her teeth hurt. An old, wheezing voice, angry.

“When they come you must kill him, solnyshko.”

“I love him,” she answers. He brought her from the cold place to this place, and he made her better. He calls her Natashenka and pinches her cheeks and if she is very good he sometimes brings her candy.

The hands tighten around her face and it hurts; her mouth tastes coppery like _Amerikanski_ pennies, like blood. She struggles, and the hands grip tighter until she gives in.

“Love is for children,” the voice says, and there is no argument left in her.

Natasha remembers this:

Her mama telling her that she must be better now, an adult in a little body, _strong_.

Then the man came and took her away from the cold place; gave her a piece of candy.

Natasha remembers this:

When the man came into her room she stabbed him three times in the chest, blade angled upward so it would slide past his ribs. Once for the liver, once for the lungs, once for the heart.

“Natashenka,” he said with a quiet last breath.

Natasha remembers this:

He had a tiny bloody handprint on his cheek and he smiled as he died.

II.

Lena slaps her, lightly, on the cheek.

“Stupid Natasha,” Lena sneers, and she runs her hand lightly up the lines of Natasha’s face; through her hair. She grips the remains of a braid and yanks Natasha’s head back.

Natasha glares. Lena smiles, all teeth.

“Why didn’t you kill him, Natashka?” she sneers. “Was it too difficult for you?”

“I killed him _years_ ago, _Lenoshka,_ ” Natasha growls. “Were you too stupid to identify the intruder correctly?”

Lena gives what’s left of her braid a sharp tug, snapping her head painfully back against the cold metal of the chair she is bound to.

“I am your superior, and you will address me as sir or Yelena,” Lena spits out. Her eyes, too pale and too blue, lock onto Natasha’s, and a familiar, cruel smile curls up the corners of her lips.

“What do you imagine they will do,Natashka, when they hear that he has been running free all this time because of _you?_ Do you think they will give you to me, as they once did, so that I can make you stronger?”

Her free hand, smooth and soft, caresses the skin of Natasha’s arm left bare by her torn sleeve. The touch is as familiar as the leather and metal that always follow.

“Is that why you brought me here, my solnyshko?” Natasha says, all sugar-sweetness and smiles. Slowly, carefully, she bites down on her lip and watches the subtle play of Lena’s eyes as they follow the motion. “So that you could have me again? Did you miss me? Do you love me, pretty blue-eyed Lena?”

Lena laughs aloud and releases her grip on Natasha’s hair, sending her head bobbing forward. Then she bends down, giving Natasha a good view down the low cut of her uniform, and she says: “Love is for children, _Natashenka_ , because only children are stupid enough to touch something they know will burn. It’s a shame you didn’t learn that before you helped your little Mitja escape.”

“I didn’t help him,” Natasha bit out, and she expected the slap across the mouth that followed.

Natasha remembers this:

He gave her candy and told her stories about heroes across the sea with blonde hair and blue eyes like her Yelena, and she stabbed him three times and watched as he bled out.

Most days she can’t remember how they persuaded her to kill the only kind man she’d ever known.

III.

“ _Natashenka_ ,” he greets, and he’s grinning wide with teeth. He twirls a piece of candy in his hands.

“They said you lived,” she tells him, standing still and straight, arms relaxed by her side, weapons within reach.

“I lived,” he agrees, still smiling. Then, in American-accented English: “Guess you still owe me a favor, baby girl.”

She nods, and releases the trigger to charge her bite. Natasha has learned to pay her debts.

“If you help me, you can never go back,” he says.

“I’m not stupid, _Mitja_ ,” she answers. “Let’s go.”

When they break out into the night, he says, “See you around, _Natashenka_. Look me up sometime. James Barnes.” He shakes her hand, just like an American, and disappears into the night.

Natasha stands there for a while before she walks away. Now that she’s free, she has no idea where she wants to go.

It’s easy to find work. There is always somebody who wants somebody else dead.

Natasha remembers this:

More than she wanted to help her _Mitja_ , more than she wanted to stop owing him: she wanted to be free to kill whomever she wished.

Years later, she hears that they caught up with James after only a few months.

IV.

Natasha remembers this:

Blood dripped down her face from a gash across her forehead. She could feel metal shift whenever she moved her leg, shrapnel from a mine no one told her would be there. Her body felt bruised and a little broken, and where once this made her aware of how alive she was, she wanted nothing more than for it to be over.

When she leaned against a wall and found herself lying on the ground instead, she was ready for that end.

“Woah, hey there,” an American said, and their voice was calm and warm and gentle. It reminded her of someone, but there was no piece of brightly colored candy in the thick warm fingers that reached down to check her pulse.

“Hey, sir, I got something,” the man said into an earpiece. To himself, he muttered, “What the fuck is she doing here anyway?”

Her English was better than it had been. _Mitja_ would have been proud. She smiled, just a little.

“Heeey there, stay with me,” the man said, as the world tilted and turned dark. She was just so tired...

“Aw hell,” he said. “Sir, I’m gonna bring her in. Get medievac to my location?”

She heard buzzing as someone replied, but she couldn’t make out the words.

“Well I’m bringing her in, even if I have to carry her. Sir.”

When he slipped gentle arms around her and shifted her so that she was supported across his shoulders-- _a fireman’s carry_ , the Americans called it--she didn’t fight him. Maybe she was ready for something new.

Natasha remembers this:

She didn’t care what happened. Maybe she was ready to die. But the man’s voice and hands were soft and she was too tired to feel anything but safe.

V. 

For the first time in her life, Natasha forgets a debt that is owed. She forgets that Clint is not simply a fellow agent, a competent co-worker, an impeccable shot. She forgets that she is not merely paid to have his back, she forgets--

She forgets to keep an eye on him.

There is not a single bug in his apartment and she can’t account for nearly fifty percent of his last leave. She’s not sure who he’s seeing, though she knows there’s someone, she doesn’t know if he’s weaker in one arm than other. She knows all his tells, all his moves, but no better than any other man or woman she’s sparred regularly with. She doesn’t search for lies or threats beneath his smiles, or spot-check his locker at regular intervals.

She does not think Clint would ever hurt her, not even on orders.

He never calls in the debt she owes him.

And then there’s a voice in her ear, choking out a pained, “Barton’s been compromised,” and she remembers that she owes this man her life. She doubts she’ll ever get the chance to repay her debt.

Then and there, Natasha swears to kill him if she cannot save him.

She hurts him and he says her name, “ _Nat_.”

Natasha remembers this:

A raspy, amused voice breathing, “ _Natashenka_ ,” as the speaker died.

She knocks him out, to be on the safe side, and when he wakes, she admits her weakness.

“I’ve been compromised,” she says, and he knocks his shoulder against hers companionably, because he understands the words she can’t voice. She’s never had to say them truthfully before.

They fight together against things for which they were never trained, and they kick those things’ _asses_. Clint accrues debt as quickly as Natasha can pay it off, and somewhere in the middle--

\--she realizes he does not expect her to pay him back. He has never asked for more than her brain and her skill and her conversation. Perhaps even her friendship, though she is hesitant to apply that term too lightly.

And, later:

“I promise I won’t let it affect our work together,” Natasha says, carefully and precisely, when everything is over.

Clint scratches the back of his neck and peers at her with a suddenly awkward, worried expression.

“Um, just to make sure we’re on the same note... ‘compromised’ means...?” he asks, looking a little like a deer in a pair of headlights.

Natasha very carefully does not smirk.

“Clint,” she breathes, leaning in towards him.

“Woah,” he says, leaning away. “Um, Natasha...”

Natasha bursts out laughing.

“Don’t worry, asshole,” she says, and she leans just far enough forward to press a kiss against his cheek.

“Thank you,” she says, and she can see that he truly does understand.

Natasha remembers this:

Clint taught her to trust before she ever thought to stop him.

VI.

Natasha remembers this:

Once, she knew how to love.

Once, she was a small girl called _Natashenka_ or _solnyshko_ or another of a dozen sweet names. Once she had a mother with beautiful red hair and sad eyes and once she had a _Mitja_ who took her away from all that. Once she had orders and death and adrenaline.

Now she has a team of _absolute morons_. She has a Tony who flirts disgustingly with her whenever Ms. Potts is around and asks her rapidfire questions about her Bite and then shows up with an entirely new one (vastly improved, she has to admit) the very next day. She has a Banner who is really quite sweet when he’s not green and murderous, who figures out that she likes properly Russian tea and brings her a cup whenever he swings by ground headquarters. She has a Thor who grins and booms ridiculous things and amuses her so much that she can’t always hold back her laughter. She has a Steve, who smiles bashfully at her and greets her in the halls and is the first person in a long, long time she can spar with, no holds barred. And, with all of that bounty, she still has a Clint.

Now, Natasha has something like faith.

Natasha has a team who knows that she bakes when she’s stressed and who tease her mercilessly about it. Ms. Potts knows that she hates out-of-date technology, and presumably she tells Tony, because somehow the latest gadget always makes its way into her locker. Occasionally it’s booby-trapped to spew loud metal music at her when she opens the door.

SHIELD loses a few lockers that way.

Thor knows that she arranges harmless, startling ‘accidents’ for people when she’s bored, and on quiet weeks he always seems to find her with a daring scheme that he’s more than willing to help her carry out. Sometimes he smiles when she’s not looking, wistful, and she wonders who he used to do this with.

Bruce spends a great deal of his time elsewhere, but he always brings her back a pretty, delicate hair comb to show he remembered. She has very little use for them, these things that are not for killing and impractical for anything else--but she keeps them in a box in her closet because she likes to look at them, sometimes.

She starts to notice little things, like the way Clint swoops in and takes her out drinking when she’s had a little too much of the Council’s stupidity, or the way the halls always seem mysteriously empty when she arrives at work after a bad night. She appreciates the feeling of safety it gives her.

She appreciates that, for the first time, someone--some _people_ seem to notice her, to go out of their way for her, just occasionally. She likes the way Steve shows up in the gym when she’s in a bad mood, ready to spar and make snarky, insightful comments into the idiocy of SHIELD’s bureaucracy, or tell her stories from his mostly-ordinary-at-least-not-as-bad-as-hers childhood. Natasha discovers that she likes stories.

Natasha remembers this:

They took her and pulled her out of herself, made her into a hollow shell so they could fill her with something foreign and cruel and deadly, and then they welded her back together with blood and heartbreak.

Natasha remembers how to be who she was, and then more.

VII.

Natasha knows something is wrong the instant the file gets passed to Steve, and he only glances at it before the blood drains from his face.

“Cap?” Clint asks, from the other side of SHIELD’s polished debriefing table.

“That’s impossible,” Steve says, flatly, “If this is a joke, it’s not funny.”

“What--?” Banner begins, but then Coulson leans over Steve’s shoulder to look at the picture, and turns a little bit grey.

“It’s not a joke,” he says, quietly. “I didn’t--”

Steve stands, and leaves the room. Natasha reaches across and slides the file to where she can see the photo.

She sucks a breath in through her teeth when she recognizes her _Mitja_ , frozen when not in use, a hundred years old they used to say, and others said that was an exaggeration.

 _James Barnes_. How could she have been so _stupid_ , to fail to notice something so very obvious.

“You’ll explain?” she asks Coulson, who nods.

She catches up with Steve in the hall, and reaches out to grasp him by the elbow. She keeps her touch light, but he stops instantly.

“We’ll get him back,” she says, and she’s surprised when her voice comes out as an unfamiliar harsh rasp.

“Nat?” Steve asks, and he sounds so young and so lost and she...

“They must have found him. I don’t... I can’t tell you how or who or what happened in between, but by the time I was a child he was working with some... past associates... of mine. He was the one who found me, who recruited me to... _them_ , who helped to make me what I am today. They, I never, I didn’t ever _see_ it, but they said they used to freeze him, cryogenics or something similar, when they weren’t using him. They used to say he was over a hundred years old.”

Every bit as gentle as her grasp, Steve tugs his arm free.

“I don’t--I thought--” he says, and she hums her quiet agreement and reaches just a little to the right, and squeezes his hand.

“We’ll find him, yeah? And we’ll bring him back.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, sounding a little lost and a lot alone.

Natasha remembers this:

When they brought Mitya-James-Bucky-Winter Soldier back, he was torn and bloody and he had an arm made of steel, and how could she have forgotten _that?_

They strapped him to a table and he screamed and tore against his restraints and bled and shouted until all the programming bled out and the man he once had been was almost all that was left. Almost.

Natasha remembers this:

Once he told her of a blonde-haired blue-eyed boy that he loved, who had a heart big enough to hold up the world, big enough to make up for the ways her _Mitja_ fell short. Once he told her stories, when no one else would.

VIII. 

He gets better.

He leaves.

SHIELD is not a prison, and they can’t/won’t condemn a man for actions he could not control. And James--he doesn’t like the name she gave him, doesn’t like to remember--James does not want to be tied down. He does not want to be a part of another organization seeking to control him, doesn’t know how to settle and sit still the way the rest of them have learned.

She watches him leave and feels a piece of her heart she’d forgotten she had break, and she watches Steve break beside her. For days after, she keeps watching him, noting how quiet and withdrawn he is, how resigned he seems. She’s isn’t sure if she’s trying to look out for him or trying to learn from him, trying to work out what to feel and how to react.

Before, leaving was always mutually agreed upon or fatal.

Now, she thinks of ways to make it hurt a little less. She plays little games, tries to see how many times she can get Steve to laugh, to forget for a moment. She’s surprised by how much better it makes her feel. She takes him out on the town, shows him sights old and new and mostly recommended by Clint, takes him to clubs and churches and parks and malls and everything in between. He has a sort of wonder at the world that she never imagined could exist, and it’s...

It’s like basking in the sun on a cool, breezy day. She never had trouble catching his sense of humor, and some days it seems like his quiet, innocent snark is the only thing that gets her through. She likes the way his nose crinkles when she drawls a sarcastic observation, but the rest of his face remains completely blank. She likes the rush of comradeship she gets every time they mock Tony in the quiet, merciless way they enjoy, and she likes the way Steve chuckles at Tony’s outrage when he finally, inevitably, catches on.

And on the bad days, the days when one of them can’t quite distinguish between the past and the present and the space where James ought to be is almost too cold and empty and gaping to bear, they meet in the gym and beat the sorrow out of each other and that, too, Natasha loves. 

Natasha remembers this:

The best days from that time were the ones where her muscles tingled with the ache of a good fight while she pulled Steve along behind her to a gelato shop recommended by Sitwell, and she smiled back at him and the sun glinted off of his hair and he smiled back and it seemed like nothing could ever hurt her again.

IX.

Natasha starts to collect things.

She has Bruce’s hair combs and bizarre Asgardian trinkets from Thor and ridiculous arrows from around the world from Clint and shoes that are supposedly from Tony but are definitely from Ms. Potts and...

Natasha collects things, now.

The others give her the same types of gifts, simple things that they know she will like from past experience. Natasha can appreciate that; she hates surprises. She has a box for each of them, so that she can keep their gifts separate and safe and, if the necessity ever arises, isolate them quickly.

Steve never gets a box.

At some point he must talk to Bruce, because he starts bringing her bizarre teas he picks up from street markets when he goes running. Those she places on a particular shelf in the cabinet above her stove. Drawings he’s given her are pinned to a corkboard panel bought just for that purpose; her favorites are a caricature of Clint perched above Phil’s office hissing and shooing baby agents away with arrows, and a beautiful sketch of Tony and Ms. Potts sleeping on each other. Natasha may not understand what Ms. Potts sees in _Stark_ of all people, but she can’t quite keep herself from feeling a certain amount of envy nonetheless.

Things like a pair of running shoes he was wearing when she invited him to her favorite gym and then home to experience the phenomenon of frozen pizza or a spare shirt he lent her after a particularly nasty mission start to accumulate in her apartment. He’s got a mug in her cabinet, the same as Clint, and she usually keeps some Girl Scout cookies on hand because she knows he likes them.

Sometimes, the way he seems to have wormed his way into her life terrifies her.

And then he’ll look up from a sketch with a smudge of graphite on his cheek or ask her what she thinks about him maybe taking up painting, and he’ll smile, and she thinks maybe it’ll be alright after all.

Natasha remembers this:

She’d seen bodies as good as Steve’s, touched them and caressed them. She’d known men as strong, watched them transform and then deteriorate under experimental protocols. She’d terminated them when the projects were declared failures, or the participants refused to cooperate to the extent expected, or the orders given.

None of them ever had a smile as sweet as Steve Rogers.

X.

Natasha remembers this:

When they kissed, his lips were warm and a little chapped and he blushed when he pulled away. She remembers how he bit his lip and looked down, a little bashful, and then back up.

“Natasha?” he asked, and she smiled back, reached up to hook a hand around his neck, and pulled him back in for another kiss.


End file.
